The English Constitution eBook

Probably, if it were considered to be desirable to
give to Parliament a more direct control over questions
of foreign policy than it possesses now, the better
way would be not to require a formal vote to the treaty
clause by clause. This would entail too much
time, and would lead to unnecessary changes in minor
details. It would be enough to let the treaty
be laid upon the table of both Houses, say for fourteen
days, and to acquire validity unless objected to by
one House or other before that interval had expired.

II.

This is all which I think I need say on the domestic
events which have changed, or suggested changes, in
the English Constitution since this book was written.
But there are also some foreign events which have
illustrated it, and of these I should like to say a
few words.

Naturally, the most striking of these illustrative
changes comes from France. Since 1789 France
has always been trying political experiments, from
which others may profit much, though as yet she herself
has profited little. She is now trying one singularly
illustrative of the English Constitution. When
the first edition of this book was published I had
great difficulty in persuading many people that it
was possible in a non-monarchical State, for the real
chief of the practical executive—­the Premier
as we should call him--to be nominated and to be
removable by the vote of the National Assembly.
The United States and its copies were the only present
and familiar Republics, and in these the system was
exactly opposite. The executive was there appointed
by the people as the legislature was too. No
conspicuous example of any other sort of Republic then
existed. But now France has given an example—­M.
Thiers is (with one exception) just the chef du pouvoir
executif that I endeavoured more than once in this
book to describe. He is appointed by and is removable
by the Assembly. He comes down and speaks in it
just as our Premier does; he is responsible for managing
it just as our Premier is. No one can any longer
doubt the possibility of a republic in which the executive
and the legislative authorities were united and fixed;
no one can assert such union to be the incommunicable
attribute of a Constitutional Monarchy. But,
unfortunately, we can as yet only infer from this experiment
that such a Constitution is possible; we cannot as
yet say whether it will be bad or good. The circumstances
are very peculiar, and that in three ways. First,
the trial of a specially Parliamentary Republic, of
a Republic where Parliament appoints the Minister,
is made in a nation which has, to say the least of
it, no peculiar aptitude for Parliamentary Government;
which has possibly a peculiar inaptitude for it.
In the last but one of these essays I have tried to
describe one of the mental conditions of Parliamentary
Government, which I call “rationality,”
by which I do not mean reasoning power, but rather